The Case of the Invisible Boatman
by LittlePippin76
Summary: Case fic. A millionaire boat-builder goes missing from his home in the dark of night. Sherlock and John are asked to investigate. I say 'case fic' but obviously a little Rosie got spilt on it. Post Series 4 canon, no slash.
1. Chapter 1

**This will be a case fic, I promise. It's just quite hard for me not to get a little Rosie spilt all over it.**

Chapter 1

John almost didn't hear his phone ring over the excited, slightly hyper sound of children being reunited with their parents. They came out in a swarm. A fairly organised swarm, where each class was let out through a specific door, but that only added to the noise. There was no neat and tidy queue where they came out one at a time. Also, he had observed, in his brief time here, that one class would be let out first, clearly when the teacher had frankly had enough. Other classes, however, were let out slowly to parents growing ever more impatient. The Reception class were always last.

He heard it on the second ring and he answered it, shoving his finger in his other ear to hear the line.

'Hello,' he said. 'You all right?'

'Yes. Are you at home?'

'Am I at home? No, Sherlock, I am not at home.'

'Where are you then? Sounds like you're in a field of geese!'

'It's three o'clock, and I have a four-year-old daughter. Make a deduction.'

'I wish you wouldn't tell me to make a deduction so often.'

'Well, you're stupid so often.'

'You could say, 'work it out,' like you'd say to anyone else.'

'Right, well, work it out. Where do you suppose the parent of a four-year-old might be at three o'clock on a weekday?'

There was a pause. Then, 'Is she at school already?'

'Yes! Of course she's at school!'

'But she's four.'

'Which, as I have explained many times, is when they start school.'

'So you can't work a case?'

'I can't work a case. Hang about.' He moved to a slightly less busy corner of the playground, wondering if Rosie's teacher could tell the time at all. 'I'm picking up Rosie. Even if I was still at home, I'd still want to be with Rosie, because it's her first week of school, and she'll be tired and excited and she'll need her dad. OK?'

'OK. I just forgot about the school thing. I didn't know she was going already.'

'For God's sake! She danced in front of you in her new uniform last weekend!'

'John…'

'What?'

'Look to your right.'

John sighed and rolled his eyes. There was Sherlock, standing amongst the chatting parents of other children.

'You utter…'

'There are children about!' Sherlock warned.

'Beany!'

Sherlock put his phone away and made his way to John.

'Beany?'

'It was literally the only word I could think of right then. Sorry. I'm a touch distracted.'

'Where is Rosie anyhow. All of these other children seem to be scurrying out already.'

'Yeah, but it takes an age to get the Reception children all coated up again. Sometimes I wonder why they bother taking them off at all. With all the breaks, they must spend about half the day just getting coats on and off. Oh look! Here they come.'

'Yes. Where's Rosie? Where's Rosie? I can't see Rosie. Where is she?'

'She'll be at the back, gossiping with her friends. See. I can see her there. Still gossiping.'

Sherlock's smile was warm. He always greeted Rosie with as much joy as she greeted him, and they never seemed to get bored of each other, even when John was bored out of his skull with both of them. She saw him now and her little face lit up, and suddenly she was pushing herself forward while her teacher gently chided her, then she was finally released. John had her bag and various papers thrown at him, but she leapt into Sherlock's arms.

'Sherlock!' she yelled into his face, then she gave him a very slobbery kiss wrapped her arms around his neck and squeezed him tightly. He wriggled to get into a more comfortable hold.

John picked up the papers and glanced through. There was information and a newsletter. He shoved them, creased, into Rosie's bag.

'Do I get a cuddle too?' John asked, and Rosie slipped from Sherlock's arms to his. 'Did you have a good day?'

'Yes!'

'What did you do?'

'Nothing!'

'Ah,' Sherlock said. 'The best days.'

John smiled at his daughter. He wrinkled up his nose, and she wrinkled hers, and they rubbed them together.

'Now,' he said, 'I thought we could go out to dinner tonight.'

'To… to… to… Angelo's?'

'Yes, if you like.'

'Can Sherlock come?'

John looked at him. 'How vital's the case?'

Sherlock pulled a face and shrugged. 'The corpse probably isn't going to get any deader.'

'You might as well come and eat then.'

'Might as well.'

Rosie flung herself back into Sherlock's arms.

'Will you tell me a story?'

'Oh, I'm sure I have a story for you and Daddy.'

The playground was rapidly emptying now.

'I suppose we'd better take her home first,' Sherlock said.

'Which home?' she asked.

Sherlock and John looked at each other.

'Our one first, then his one after,' John said.

'Seems fair,' Sherlock replied. 'Come on, little Rosie Petal.' He shifted her about in his arms, then lifted her onto his shoulders. 'Let's take you homes.'


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

John started to regret the suggestion as soon as they got into the house. The first house, where Rosie and he slept. She was wound up and clearly too tired to do anything much. There was a battle over whether she should change her clothes to go out (her, no. Him, yes). She begged to show Angelo her uniform, even though it now had glue, paint and yogurt over it. He truly valued, at these times, Sherlock's ability to stay calm and his determination never to overrule John on anything. She was not going to get dressed even for him though, and John had to manage that feat for himself, shoving rebellious little limbs into the appropriate sleeves. But he'd said they'd do it now, and he could still clearly remember the times as a child when a promised treat was suddenly whisked away from him, so he held his nerve.

She settled into something resembling a civilised human being in the cab, and managed to become charming again when she got into the restaurant. It helped that Angelo beamed at her and called her a glorious girl as soon as she appeared. He had sheets of colouring pictures and pots of crayons on the tables for younger visitors, but Rosie got a whole book of pictures along with a box full of pencils and sheets of stickers. John had made a rule that Mrs Hudson and Angelo were allowed to spoil his daughter. It gave them pleasure, and it wouldn't cause harm. And Molly too, when she had her. And Greg, though he didn't do much actual babysitting. He just tended to have bags of sweets or little toys on him whenever he came around. So, they were all allowed to spoil her a little. As long as Sherlock and he didn't. And he knew that Sherlock did.

However, it made things easier that she had her colouring book, and before they'd even ordered, she'd been served tomatoes and cucumber with cheese cubes to keep her going while they waited for their actual meals. John found himself finally relaxing, eating a meal that someone else had cooked for him and that someone else was going to clear up after. It felt as though it had been weeks of stress.

'So,' Sherlock said, 'school's going fine then.'

'Yep.' John looked down at Rosie's head while she coloured a flower. 'She certainly seems to be enjoying it.'

'I knew she would.'

'Hah!'

'I did! I had every confidence in her ability to both cope with the routine and make friends.'

'I know you did,' John said. It was he who had done all the fretting about that.

'I just remembered I didn't,' Sherlock said, softly.

'I know.' He looked down at the golden curls. 'She is better than you though.'

'I am learning how to be things in school,' Rosie said.

'Ah,' Sherlock replied. 'What are you learning to be?'

'I don't know yet.'

'Well, it's only been a week,' he said.

'I think I want to be a doctor like Daddy, or a detective, or a sassin. Like Mummy.'

She went back to her picture. The men stared at each other.

'Rosie, darling,' John said, stroking her head, 'your mummy was a nurse. That's what she did.'

'And a sassin. That's what Sherlock said.

Sherlock looked panicked and mouthed the words, 'No, I didn't!' at John.'

'You did,' Rosie insisted. 'He said, 'well, you married a bloody sassin.' And you were married to Mummy, so Mummy must have been the sassin. Then Daddy shouted about you falling on a path…'

'Falling on a path?' Sherlock glanced at John who shrugged.

'A something path,' Rosie said. 'A… a… a cycle-path I think.'

'Psychopath?' John said.

'Yes. That.' She pointed in approval with a yellow pencil.

'Well,' Sherlock said, slowly, 'that is very logical of you. Good deductions.'

John shrugged at him. 'It's like she hears everything, and yet, when she chooses, she also hears nothing.'

'I will try to shout at you more quietly.'

'Thank you. It's appreciated.'

'I think when I'm older,' Rosie said, looking up again, 'I want to be a doctor, or a nurse, or a sassin, or a detective, or a… a… cycle-path.'

Another glance was exchanged.

'Well, I'm sure we can narrow that down over the next few years,' Sherlock said, barely holding back his laughter.

John laughed. 'Let's just be pleased she hasn't added dominatrix to that list.'

Sherlock nearly spat out his wine.

'What is a sassin?' Rosie asked.

'An assassin is…' John started.

'It's a…' Sherlock provided. 'I thought I was going to tell you a story,' he said.

'Yes! A Sherlock story!' John agreed. 'Ideally one that won't give you nightmares.'

'I never give her nightmares.'

'Just choose wisely,' John warned him. 'I'm pretty sure you mentioned the word 'corpse' earlier, and we're at your house tonight, remember.'

'Right, OK, Rosie, are you ready to listen?'

She put her pencil down and looked dutifully attentive.

'There was, once upon a time, a very famous boat builder in London,' Sherlock started.

'Big boats or little boats?' Rosie asked.

'Both. He'd make any boat you might want to sail in, and sometimes people with lots of money would come to him and ask him to build an amazing boat for them. Now, when this man got older, he started thinking, I don't really want to build boats anymore. He was a very grumpy old man, and sometimes people didn't like to talk to him, you see. He was rude. But people did want to buy his brilliant boats! They just didn't want to talk to the rude man, so he had someone else build the boats, and someone nicer sell the boats. Then he went back to his big house to live by himself and not annoy people.'

Rosie narrowed her eyes at him.

'It wasn't me,' Sherlock said. 'I don't build boats.'

'But you are grumpy and rude. And old.'

'But there were significant differences. For example, I live with Mrs Hudson downstairs, and sometimes you and Daddy stay with me too, and, critically, I don't build boats.'

This seemed to be accepted, though she looked as though it was still up for consideration.

'So, this boat building man made lots of money from other people building and selling his boats,' Sherlock continued.

'But they're not his boats,' Rosie pointed out. 'If he didn't make them, and someone else sold them, then they're not never his boats.'

'No, I suppose not.' Sherlock's face when still while his brain whirled away, working out how to explain the world of commerce to a four-year-old.

John took her onto his knee.

'What it is, you see,' he said, taking his turn, 'is that people want to buy the very best boats in the world, so they want to buy the grumpy old man's boats. But the new people wouldn't be able to sell the boats unless he pretended they were his, because his are the best, so they put his name on them, and gave him a bit of the money.'

'That's cheating,' Rosie said.

'Yes, but he retained the ownership of the firm as a whole,' Sherlock added. 'Do you understand that?'

'No,' she said. She wriggled in John's arms. 'Can we go home now?'

'I'd like to hear a little bit more of the story,' John said. 'And I think it's about to get exciting now.'

'Yes!' Sherlock agreed. 'Exciting! What happened is, late yesterday, when you were still asleep, someone broke into the grumpy old man's house. And, this morning, it turned out that the grumpy old man had vanished!'

'Is he invisible?'

'No, that would be impossible, and we have to eliminate the impossible, remember? What happened was that… that… OK, inside the house, there was a… a… yucca plant. Do you know what one is?'

'Mrs Hudson has one.'

'So she does. That must have been why it popped into my head. Now, the yucca plant wasn't there! A great big yucca plant! Vanished. But… in the yucca plant's living room, there was evidence that the yucca plant might have been beaten up! There was… _sap_ … do you know what sap is?'

'It's plant blood.'

'It is. Well, there was sap in the room, but only a very little bit, and when they looked very hard, they found that outside in his shed, where he still built little boats, there had been a great, big fire!'

'A big fire?'

'Yes.'

'Then how did they have to look very hard?' she asked. 'If it was a big fire? Like, when we went to the big bonfire in the park, you could see it straight away.'

'Yes. You are right. In fact, people saw the fire and that's why they came to the house, and on investigating the fire, they found the yucca plant missing.'

Rosie yawned. 'You're really not telling this story very well,' she said.

'No, I suppose I'm not. But do you want to know what they found where the fire had burnt?'

'Was it a yucca plant?' she asked, obviously bored.

'It was,' Sherlock said, robbed of his big reveal.

'So,' John said, 'a struggle in the house of a very rich man, and a yucca plant on a fire in his boat-house. That doesn't sound like the sort of thing you might look into. Why are you involved?'

'Greg came to see me about it. It doesn't sit well with him.'

'Did he bring anything for me?' Rosie asked, her head popping up.

'Not this time. Only for me.'

She sighed and wriggled back into John's arms.

'So, what's his problem with it?' John asked.

'All sorts. An arrest was made pretty quickly. There's currently a kid sitting in his cells by the name of Jackson Davis. Not a kid with particularly clean record, grew up in White City, has a fairly wide circle of friends there, enjoys petty theft and all the usual. They have evidence that he was in the house prior to the struggle and the fire, someone passing by thought they'd seen him. Not the sort of person who usually frequents their street, apparently.'

'Nice.'

'The kid maintains that he had travelled several miles across town because he was being interviewed for an apprenticeship in the boatyard. Unfortunately, he has a fairly distinctive metal rod…'

'A metal rod?'

'Yes. A little over two-foot long and an inch or so in diameter. Apparently, they're all the rage at the moment. You can't be arrested for owning a metal rod, or so they assume. Plus, you're less likely to actually kill someone with it, thus, being able to beat a rival yucca plant down without the tricky problem of accidentally murdering it.'

'But his was distinctive?'

'On account of the youth of today being utterly stupid, they like to decorate them. Etch carvings into them and the like. Make them truly their own.'

'And his was in the room where the yucca plant had been beaten up?'

'It was, and there was blood on it. I think we've lost our audience.'

John looked down and smiled. Rosie was indeed soundly asleep with her face pressed to his chest. They moved two chairs together, put Sherlock's coat down, and settled her down on that.

'So, you've got pictures of this yucca plant?' John asked.

'I have.'

John moved his chair around Sherlock took a file from his bag and put the relevant pictures on the table.

'What's our yucca's name?' John asked.

'Mr Conner Oldacre.'

'Oh! Him!'

'What? You know him?'

'Nope. I just like to pretend I do to piss you off. Let's see.' He looked at the picture of the charred remains of the body for less than two seconds. 'Well that's not him!'

'No. Even Lestrade picked that up. Though Anderson's working the case, so he had help.'

'Do you know who she is?'

'No. She's with Molly at the moment. There's first thought is that the cleaning lady didn't turn up for work today, but given that she isn't someone who would willingly present herself to the police, that doesn't tell us much. For example, she lives on three different bus routes, but still chooses to walk the two miles to work every morning.'

'What a lovely world we live in,' John said, quietly.

'Quite. We have her DNA, obviously, so we've got that going on in the background, but there is no sign of a second body, or Mr Goldacre.'

'He's turned invisible.'

'Yep. No signs of him leaving his house, no sightings on the road with the very nosy neighbours, nothing on all of the security cameras guarding their lovely properties.'

'Could he have escaped down the river?'

'It's being dredged as we speak, and there are searches going on up and downstream. Nothing's been found since he was discovered missing this morning, apart from the fact that there is evidence of an attack in his living room.'

John picked up the picture of the living room. There was enough furniture pushed out of place to suggest a struggle. A cushion had fallen and it had a small smear of blood on it. There were other spatters of blood here and there, marked off with little numbered markers.

'Show me the corpse again?' John said. 'I want the head.'

'Yes. The head.'

He was given a further picture, this time a picture of a shattered skull. It hadn't been burnt well, and there were still traces of flesh on it, but John was far more interested in the fractures. At one point, the back of the skull had been entirely depressed, caved inwards from the pressure. The jaw and nose socket were also cracked and several teeth had been forced out.

'Huh,' John said.

'Yes.'

'Definitely a blunt trauma. Let's see this distinctive rod?' He looked. 'Could be, I suppose. I'm not sure it would be up to this though. It looks like zinc over copper, and this needed something heavier, and, I suspect, wider. The front of the face is interesting, don't you think? She must have been knocked unconscious from behind, but then whoever it was went on to smash up her face. I'd say...' he peered more closely at the pictures, 'yes, I'd say that she was unconscious before the lethal blow happened at the back. Then the front of the face. Molly will know better though. I'm seeing that dark smudge as a concussion, but that needs to be verified.'

'I'm assuming the face was smashed for disguising purposes.'

'Odd if you were going to burn the body anyway. And I'll tell you what though, anyone who died from this sort of injury didn't lose only a few spots of blood from it. That nose would have been gushing apart from anything else.'

'So, she didn't die in the room,' Sherlock said. 'Which is odd, because something heavy was dragged from it.'

'Not her though. Anything else?'

'His computer had been broken into and ransacked. The password isn't exactly uncrackable, but I'd doubt a seventeen-year-old with an average educational background could have managed it. It was out of place, but left there and not stolen. My current hypothesis is that someone was going through it in front of him.'

'Could he have smacked someone down while they did so?'

'It's certainly possible.'

'You've got his document folder?'

'I've got a copy, along with all the recent deletions. I hoped that you could go through them to check there's nothing missing. Not just deleted; I need to know if something should be there but never was.'

John looked up. 'So, I get the paperwork part of the job then?'

'No! Not just the paperwork! I want to talk to Jackson Davis' mother for background, and I'll need you for that.'

'On account of you being an arsehole?'

'On account of that, yes. We've also got access to the crime-scene this evening, and if you want to come to that, we should go soon so we don't lose the remaining light. Do you think she's ready to go?'

They smiled at the sleeping child. Her thumb was in her mouth by now.

'I'll carry her back and put her to bed,' John said. 'We've got that long.'


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

It took slightly longer than anticipated. Rosie had slept on John's shoulder like a lamb for all of the short walk back to Baker's street, but then she woke up enough to complain bitterly about having to brush her teeth and go to bed when she wanted to be allowed to stay up with them. John wisely didn't tell her they were going out again. He just got on with getting her to sleep while Sherlock installed Mrs Hudson in the living room to listen out for her in case she woke up.

The sun was nearly down entirely by the time they'd reached Oldacre's house – a large, detached place with a garden that ran down onto the river. John, as was his way, mentally assessed the value of said house as he was walking into it. He put it at several million.

There was still a strong smell of burn wood and some plastic solution, carbon fibre as he later discovered, that permeated the house.

'Living room in here?' John asked, peering through to a room with large patio doors, currently open at the far side of it.

'Yes, but we're going in there last.'

'Sherlock! John!' Anderson waved at them through those doors.

'We'll come round the side!' Sherlock called back.

'Do you find it easier with him on side?' John asked.

'No. I find it even more irritating, if anything.

They stepped out into the garden. It was fairly low maintenance as these things go; evergreen shrubs and a few, small trees rather flowerbeds. The selling feature of it, and the thing that added at least a million to the price of it, was that it swept down to the wide water of the Thames. There was a short wall at the end of it, only a foot at this side, but a drop of about 4 beyond. It gave it a few feet of flood protection, though probably not enough for a storm over a springtide, but it would be worth those small inconveniences for the fact that you could own a whole boathouse with runners to take you straight down onto it along with a floating jetty. In a moment of idle curiosity following a case much further up the river, John had looked into how much a private mooring on the Thames would cost to hire for a month. It was eye-watering.

Today, the splendid Thames was slightly diminished due to the presence of two small dredgers and a larger one further out.

'Perhaps someone killed him just so they'd dredge this stretch,' Sherlock muttered. 'Ah, Anderson.'

Anderson peeled off his gloves before shaking Sherlock's hand.

'I'm legally obliged to tell you not to ruin my crime scene,' he said. 'There are gloves in the box over there.'

Sherlock went to put some on. He also took off his coat to better check the floor without it flapping around. He stayed off the marked-out path where John could see an indentation leaving a marked path through the short grass. He merely squatted down beside it to look from the side and into the doorway of the house. They'd lost the light, and he waved his hand behind him.

'Torch!' he barked.

Anderson hurried to put one into his hand. Sherlock shone it over the grass. Then he got down and put his head down so that he could see the depression in his eyeline.

'Fine,' he said, standing up. He kept hold of the torch to walk along the short wall, looking carefully. He hopped over the boat-runners and examined them closely too, then along to the shrubs at the far side. He finished his examination by walking along the jetty, shining the torch on it and then along the wall on the riverside. There wasn't much to see here; the tide was in far enough to obscure the bottom of the wall. The task of finding a body there would have to be left to the dredgers.

'Can I see the fire now?' he asked.

Anderson led across the garden to where there was the burnt out remains of a large shed.

'I'm afraid the smell isn't all that attractive,' he said. 'There was a fair amount of carbon fibre in here.'

This time Sherlock ducked under the police tape, and John followed him. He held his hand to his nose to try to avoid some of the acrid smell.

'That's where the body was, yes?' Sherlock said, pointing to the far corner where the worst of the fire damage was.

'Yes. There was wood already there, nice and dry for whatever boatbuilders use wood for, and petrol was used as an accelerant.'

John took his own torch out, and they both squatted down to look. There was always some disturbance when bodies are removed from such material, but it had been kept to a minimum. They could clearly see where a top layer of burnt material had been removed though.

'She was covered first?' John said.

'She was. We've also removed a belt hook from the ashes, along with a small scrap of denim that somehow survived. We think she was wearing a Prada belt over jeans. There appears to have been at least two rings, but made from zinc so they were melted up. We're still going through it, but they're the only finds so far.'

'Right.' Sherlock stood up. 'Thank you. We have all we need from here.'

Sherlock ducked back under the tape and marched towards the house.

'How are things?' Anderson asked John.

'Yeah, good. How about you?'

'Fine. It seems to be going well.'

'I'm glad for you. Apparently, we're going into the house now then.' He looked to where Sherlock was climbing back into his coat. He didn't go via the still open patio doors, but they went back around and approached the room from the other end. Sherlock toed his shoes off at the doorway, and John nodded at Anderson who was a gnat's tooth away from crying over it. John took his own off and followed Sherlock in.

Sherlock didn't say much. He crouched with his face against the carpet again, so that he could see the projected path of the heavy object. Then he knelt up and looked at the position of the furniture and the scattered cushions. He waved his hands towards the blood drops as an instruction for John to take a look.

'We don't think the spatter pattern is right,' Anderson said, from the doorway.

'I agree with you,' John said. 'For one thing, there's not enough of it. For another… the scatter pattern isn't right.'

'It's certainly been careful not to drop itself on anything expensive,' Sherlock muttered. 'We'll know more when we hear the DNA results, but I'm willing to bet that this is Oldacre's blood.

'So he was fought in this room?' Anderson asked. Sherlock looked to John.

'He was certainly in a fight in this room,' John said. 'It's unlikely that it led to his death. Or anyone else's. Some of it's been set up.'

'How do you know?'

'That chair there, for example,' Sherlock said, pointing. 'It's a heavy sofa. Expensive and well built. It's feasible that it was moved if someone relatively heavy was forced sharply against it, and that movement may have caused that cushion to catapult from it…'

'Conveniently smearing someone's blood on it,' John put in.

'Quite. And, also conveniently, this heavy chair was scraped across the carpet in one direction, but then seems to have been scraped again slightly to change its position, then lifted to be moved again. It ended up several inches from its starting point.'

John paced carefully across the floor a few times.

'And whatever hit it, must have hit it from over there, where that perfectly intact table with its nicely placed vase of flowers is. It couldn't have been our charred woman either; Molly will be more accurate, but I'm fairly sure she wasn't heavy enough for it. It would have to have been one hell of a push otherwise, and I'd expect a crushed ribcage if that were the case.'

'So, the scene was set up?' Anderson said.

'It was,' Sherlock agreed. 'Now, for the next.'

He put his head down on the carpet again, near the door, and then, when he went through to the hall, he did the same thing on several of the stair-treads.

'I think that whatever was dragged came from upstairs,' he said. 'What have you found there?'

'No sign of struggle,' Anderson said.

Sherlock led the way upstairs. He spent little time in each of the bedrooms which were small and relatively Spartan, but one of the larger rooms had been turned into a study.

'Why have a study up here?' John asked.

'The view,' Sherlock said. From this angle, the view from the wide windows was straight onto the Thames which now, with the last of the sunset streaking the sky and reflecting below, was particularly lovely.

The study itself was more like a shrine. There was a large draftsman's table in the centre with rolls of plans and blueprints. The rest of the room contained pictures, scaled models of boats, presumably ones he'd made, ship's compasses, barometers, boat-hooks, ropes of varying thickness and strengths and even plastic cups with printed pictures of anchors on them. Sherlock studied these for a while. Then he started opening the large, wooden lockers that lined the room. He stopped at one of them.

'Yes, it came from here,' he said.

John squatted down to look.

'See the dust pattern?' Sherlock said. 'There, around the edges, there's dust. In the centre, no dust. The edges of it have been blurred slightly, as though someone dragged something large and heavy out of it. Something that had been here a good 20 years or so, given how much dust there is in a closed cupboard. We also know that our missing cleaner didn't get to see in here too often.'

'So this is where the heavy object came from?' Anderson asked. 'Could it have been whomever was on the fire?'

'Not unless she'd been here 20 years, and the body wasn't decomposed enough for that.'

'Oh yes, of course. Sorry. I'll shut up now.'

Sherlock gave John his exasperated look.

'Finally, the last,' he said, straightening up.

Sherlock paced along the top landing, counting as he went, stared out the large, picture window at the end of it, then charged back down the stairs again. John and Anderson followed. He paced along the bottom hallway and straight through to the large kitchen at the end of it. Then he turned and ran back through the house to the upstairs, along to the picture window, then down again with the other's trailing him. Then up. Then down.

'Can you give us some clue as to what this might be about?' John said, panting.

'Yes. You have been gaining weight of late, and this seemed like a good opportunity to resolve some of that. No no!' he laughed, putting his hands up at John's cross face, 'it did start as a genuine enquiry, but it came to nothing and it amused me that you kept following me. I just wanted to pace out the landing upstairs. It's exactly as it should be. There's nothing more we can do here tonight, I don't think. Let's head home.' They gathered their shoes from the hallway and set off back to Baker Street.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Sherlock awoke when a small girl climbed up and wriggled into bed with him. And poked him in the chest.

'Sherlock, it's morning time!'

'Are you sure?' he asked, refusing to open his eyes. 'Because it doesn't feel like it is.'

'I'm _very_ sure. And Daddy said I could come downstairs to you and that you would make me breakfast.'

'Did he indeed?'

'Yes, and he said I could have ice-cream.'

He opened an eye now, to peer at her.

'Rosie? Is it possible that you're not being entirely truthful?'

She played with her feet.

'He definitely said I could have ice-cream,' she assured him.

'This morning?' He gave in and sat up.

'Maybe it was on a different morning.'

'For breakfast?'

'Maybe for a different meal.'

'Right. So, on account of the fact that you've been allowed ice-cream at some point in the past, that means that you're always allowed ice cream again?'

'Yes.'

'Hm. While I can see your logic, let me ask you this; has Daddy ever said no, you cannot have ice-cream?'

There was a pointed silence.

'Because,' Sherlock went on, 'if we follow that same logic, we can state that if Daddy has ever said no to ice-cream, then it must mean it's always no to ice-cream.'

Rosie continued to play with her feet.

'Fortunately,' Sherlock said, 'I don't actually have any ice-cream, so I will make you cereal and toast. And I won't mention the ice-cream conversation to Daddy. Come on – get up now.'

He gently pushed her out of bed and followed her to the kitchen. He started the coffee before attending to her. By the time John got downstairs, she'd had a cup of milk, had eaten three Weetabix, and was now merrily working her way through toast with honey. The ferocity of her appetite was such that even Sherlock got hungry, so he made toast with jam, which Rosie instantly wanted, so they swapped a few slices around.

'Are we all right in here?' John asked, tousling Rosie's golden hair. His had got caught in it, stuck with either honey or jam.

'We're sharing breakfast,' Sherlock said. 'There is none left for lazy people who don't get up with their own children.'

'There's no lie-in for people who tell me read every document on a memory stick while they sit there motionless in an armchair.' John put his own bread in the toaster and poured a coffee.

'I was thinking,' Sherlock said.

'I'm sure you were.'

'Did the invisible man come back?' Rosie asked. 'The one with the yucky plant?'

'Not yet,' Sherlock said. 'We're still working on it.'

'Rosie petal,' John said, 'Sherlock and I need to go out a bit this morning.'

'Can I come?' she instantly asked.

'Not this time.' Her bottom lip was instantly thrust out. 'Mrs Hudson says you can stay here with her, and we won't be very long, and when we're back, I'll take you to the park.'

'Hyde Park or Regent's Park?' she asked.

'We'll see.'

'Does that mean Regent's Park?' she asked. 'Or might it mean Hyde Park? With the boats?'

Sherlock did enjoy watching Rosie negotiate with someone over something. Particularly with John, given that most other people just gave in to her demands. John had once explained that Rosie was better than other children, because she didn't whine or sulk or throw a tantrum when told no. She just gave reasoned arguments designed to sway someone to her way of thinking. Which was clearly a sign of her maturity and confidence and wasn't because she was a pain in the bum. This was followed, a mere thirty minutes later, by her throwing herself to the ground and beating her fists on the kitchen floor when told that she couldn't have another biscuit. Sherlock enjoyed watching that too. Today, however, the discussion was calm.

'I was only thinking of Regent's Park,' John said.

'So you were thinking of Regent's Park, with the zoo?'

'Not the zoo. We could take a football though.'

'We could,' she agreed. 'But we could take a football to Hyde Park too. With the boats.'

Sherlock hid his face behind his coffee.

'Right then,' John said. 'We will think about that when we're back. We won't be long though.'

'Is it too early to get people up at…' Sherlock turned around to see the clock, 'seven-thirty on a Saturday? It certainly feels too early for me to get up.'

'I have to bathe the beast anyhow,' John said. 'We'll aim for nine or so.'

Rosie was washed, dressed in suitable clothes, and had her hair tied and pinned into two neat little bunches, all the while telling the world at large how dreadful and terrible John was as a parent for causing this sudden attack of cleanliness. They were just starting to make themselves ready for their own outing when Lestrade came in.

'Oh, morning all,' he said. 'I was only expecting Sherlock.'

Rosie had scrambled up anyhow. 'Is there chocolate?' she asked.

'It's a bit early in the day for chocolate, don't you think?' he said.

'No. It's a good time.'

He smiled at John. 'I'm not saying I have got a chocolate bar, but if I was to have one, it would be a very small one.'

'You can have a very small bar of chocolate,' John said. 'But that is your only sweet for the whole of the day.'

'Yes,' she agreed. 'I'll tell Mrs Hudson.'

'No. I will tell Mrs Hudson,' John replied. 'But you can have Uncle Greg's chocolate now.'

It was produced and approved of. Greg beamed at the 'Uncle' moniker, which always pleased John and annoyed the jealousy-box of Sherlock.

'I actually came about work. Have you started looking at the files from the computer?'

'No, because John had an early night,' Sherlock snapped.

'I worked until one. Is there anything specific you were after?'

'Did you get to the will?' Lestrade asked.

'I don't remember a will. Wouldn't it be with is solicitor?'

'Yes, there is certainly a formal agreed one there. There is, however, another one on the computer. I brought you a copy.'

He handed John a printed sheet. Before he even started reading it, it was obvious something was off with it. Sherlock sat beside him to look. Whoever was responsible for creating the document had made parts of it at several different times, possibly on different computers. The central section was clearly copied and pasted from somewhere else, a website looked most likely, and the formatting wasn't uniform throughout.

'Looks official, doesn't it?' Sherlock said.

'Yep,' Lestrade agreed. 'There's no question in anyone's mind that he was leaving his business along with his entire fortune to Jackson Davis.'

'Right,' John said. 'Poor kid.'

'He's beside himself,' Lestrade said. 'He admits that he knew about it, and that he thought it was a joke, and it was only after the man died that he started to panic about it. It would seem that he'd hoped we wouldn't ever know about it, and he bawled when he found out we had it.'

'But he knows now that the whole thing is boll...' John looked across the room to Rosie, whom he'd temporarily forgotten was there. '...some,' he finished with.

'We've tried to explain that it's all bollsome,' Lestrade said. 'He's relieved to know he's not a murder suspect on account of being the sole heir to this chaps business, so he's calmer now. Unfortunately, there is a further complication.'

He handed Sherlock another piece of paper. This one was a bank statement, and the noticeable transactions were too and from an account in the name of Jackson Davis.

'OK,' John said.

Sherlock looked up. 'I think we really need to go and talk to the boy's family now,' he said. 'Greg, could you watch Rosie for a couple of hours?'

'What?' He said. 'I mean, probably, if you're desperate, but...'

'He's messing with your head,' John told him. 'She'll be downstairs, and you'll be safely at work.'

'Good then.'

'We'll see you later. Come on, Rosie Petal,' he said. 'Let's get you settled somewhere.'


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

The Davis flat was valued in John's head as being worth probably somewhere around £750,000, most of that for location. It was badly organised, the rooms were small with low ceilings, the kitchen was tiny and the bathroom under-equipped.

'I am going to put a lock on Homes Under the Hammer if you don't stop doing that,' Sherlock muttered to John while Jenny Davis was going to fetch them water.

'Oh, you know you do it too,' John muttered back.

It was clear that Ms Davis, emphasis on the 'Ms' didn't own a £750,000 property. This was an area where there was still a fairly decent provision of social housing. She kept it nicely though. It was clean, tidy, the furniture was nice and understated and the pictures on the wall showed her pride in her family – Jackson, the older child, and a younger girl, probably by about three years, and clearly not of identical parentage to her older brother.

Ms Jackson herself was a petite, tidy woman with neat and sedate clothing and a good haircut. Even with her eyes red and her face puffy, you could see that she was an attractive woman. Suspicious though, and she'd only allowed them in when she heard Sherlock's name and that he was trying to make the case that her son was innocent of everything he was accused of.

'I know he had gone off track a bit,' she said. 'But, don't all kids from time to time? Don't all of them spend a bit of time not doing quite what they should?'

'Of course they do,' John said, gently, sitting down on the sofa with her and allowing Sherlock to loom on his own.

'Have you got kids?' she asked.

Every single time he was asked that question, John found his heart swelling with love.

'I do. A little girl. She's already capable of a huge amount of mischief,' he said.

'No, she's perfect,' Sherlock put in. It was possible he didn't even know he had, and his attention didn't waver from examining the photos of the Davis children.

'But they come all right again?' she asked, desperate.

'They do,' John said.

'I told him not to go down there,' she said, finally getting to the part of the conversation they were interested in. 'I told him to leave that bastard Oldacre well alone.'

'You knew him?' Sherlock asked her, turning to watch her.

'Yeah. A long time ago.' When she took a mouthful of water, her hands shook on the glass.

'He was your lover,' Sherlock said, bluntly, and the water sloshed from the glass. John took it from her and put it aside.

'Not for ages gone,' she said. 'It was a stupid mistake, that's what it was. A mistake and not a relationship.'

'But for longer than one night,' Sherlock pushed.

'But that happens sometimes,' John soothed. 'It can sometimes take a while for even the best of us to work out that the person they've fallen for is actually a psychopath.'

Sherlock turned away to let John deal with this.

'He was a psychopath,' she agreed, swiping away new tears. There was a box of tissues on the coffee table and John held it out for her. She took one and blew her nose. 'The only thing what I can think about it was that I wasn't the only one who fell for him.'

Sherlock made an almost imperceptible signal with a slight tap of his left foot on the floor.

'There were other women?' John asked.

'Yeah. Well, only one that I know of. She's a bitch too.'

'You've had a run in?'

'She thought she'd got him first, and I was the other woman. I wasn't though. At least, not that I'd known about. He threw me out anyhow, when he worked out that she'd worked it out. Thought it was funny. Laughed at both of us.'

'Did she stay with him, do you know?'

'No. She laid into me proper when he ditched her too. Said it was my fault. She still has a handful of my hair.'

Two tiny taps of Sherlock's left foot. John floundered around for the question, then he followed Sherlock's eyeline to where he was staring at a picture of both Davis children.

'Ms Davis,' John asked quietly, 'I know that this is something of a personal question but…' Two impatient taps. 'Is it possible that Conner Oakacre is Jackson's father?'

'No.' She shook her head. 'I was dead scared for a bit, but I checked. You know, I did that paternity thing. Not for years after though, when Jackson was older and it was cheaper. His dad, his real dad, we still get on OK, and he was happy to do it. He wanted to know too, you see, that he really was his. So, no. That bastard Connor isn't my boy's dad. He's not. He should of left us alone, but he came after him anyway.'

She broke down and sobbed then. Sherlock turned back, but John gave his own tiny single that he should shut the hell up right now.

'He came after him?' he asked.

'Yes. He came and told Jackson that he had this apprentice. That he'd snagged it for him…'

'Why?'

'He said he'd been told by his teachers he was a good kid. Jackson ate it all up. I told him not to, I begged him even, but he went anyway. Told me I never had faith in him. I should have told him it was a brilliant idea and would be the making of him! He wouldn't be in a prison cell then, would he?'

She sobbed into her tissue. John looked to Sherlock who gave him a little nod of his head towards her. John rolled his eyes at him. Sherlock gave a slight shrug. John breathed out.

'Ms Davis, I'm really sorry to ask this, but could you tell us the other woman's name?

oOo

Angela Devenham's house was worth significantly more than £750,000.

'Seriously!' Sherlock said. 'Will you stop doing that!'

'I can't!' John replied. 'It's like a compulsion. It's not deliberate!'

The door buzzed open on the Chelsea apartment block and they went inside. Mrs Devenham was waiting for them in her doorway, dressed in something designer that Sherlock would undoubtedly know but John didn't. Well styled hair, full make up and high heels even when inside the house. She had an impatient, petulant look on her face.

'Come in then,' she said in a smoky voice. 'Understand I wouldn't let you in but I was on the point of calling you myself.'

Sherlock went in first.

'You wanted our services?' he asked.

'Yours. I'm not sure I need it all over the internet.' She gave John a scornful look.

He smiled back, safe in the knowledge that he'd burned any bridges she might have with Sherlock. He let him take over the interview.

'Why do you want to employ me?' Sherlock asked.

'My daughter, Felicity, she hasn't been home for a couple of nights.'

'But that isn't unusual,' Sherlock said, glancing around. 'So why are you bothered now?'

Ms Devenham was flustered, though only for a second before her harder façade came down again.

'There was a fire at Oldacre's house,' she muttered.

'So?' Sherlock said, dismissively. 'Ah, I see. You were stupid enough to start a romance with Conner Oldacre,' he said.

'It wasn't stupid!'

'But you knew he had relationships with other women.'

'Stupid women. Not relationships – they were fuckbuddies, nothing more. He threw them off as soon as he was bored.'

'But he kept you for what, six months? Seven?'

'It was nearly a year!'

'Long enough for you to spawn his child and get a nice tidy flat in Chelsea for your efforts?'

She gave him a tight-lipped look.

'We only have one further question,' he said. 'Was your daughter his only acknowledge child?'

'Yes! She was his only one.'

'I'm sure. So she was the sole heir to his estate?'

'She bloody better have been!'

'Right. Well, thank you. I'll let the police that you're concerned and they'll send a constable over to talk to you. Goodbye now.'

'What?' she said. 'Is that it?'

'Fine,' he said. 'What was your daughter wearing?'

'I don't know! Her clothes! Her normal clothes.'

John closed his eyes and allowed the cold trickle of horror to run down his back.

'I'm sorry, I can't help you.' Sherlock said, 'I'll send the police.' He swept out of the room, and John hurried after him.

'That wasn't necessary,' John said, as soon as they were encased in the privacy of the lift.

'What?' Sherlock said. 'I was quick at any rate.'

'I appreciate that, but the woman's just lost her daughter. There might have been some small way that you could have prepared her for that, rather than getting in her face.'

'I didn't know about the daughter until I was half way through. I can hardly go back now!'

'Still. Would you just remember next time?'

'What?'

'Parents, Sherlock. Will you just remember parents?'

Sherlock's gaze travelled across the whole of John slightly.

'Yes. I will try. I apologise.'

'That's fine. Just don't do it again.'

They waited for the lift doors to open.

'If it's any consolation, when she finds out about her daughter, my conversation with her will have turned to dust.'

John just glared.

'OK,' Sherlock said, quietly. 'I will try to do better.'

'Right. Let's go and save Mrs Hudson from Rosie.'


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Rosie leapt right into John's arms and gave him a tight squeeze around his neck.

He felt guilty. Rosie loved Mrs Hudson, obviously, but she did find her just a touch boring. Sometimes they would cook together, which pleased her, but other times this wasn't convenient for Mrs Hudson, so she was supplied with toys and colouring books and basically left to get on with it. It was no less than either he or Sherlock would do, and he couldn't ask her to actually be entertaining when she was providing free child-care at a moment's notice. He did feel guilty though. Not least because Rosie had been at school all week, and he knew it really ought to be him with her.

'Right,' he said. 'Let's take you home then.'

'You said a park!'

'I did say a park,' he agreed, wishing he hadn't. 'You'll want to have a picnic to take there though, won't you?' He instantly regretted that one too.

'Will Sherlock come?'

'Sherlock's working for a bit, sweetie.'

The looked across at Sherlock who was leaning against the hallway wall, clearly too engrossed to even manage the stairs without propulsion, eyes glued to his phone.

'Sherlock?' John called.

'Mm?'

'Say goodbye to Rosie for a bit.'

'What? Oh, yes!' He smiled and came to give her a hug. 'I will see you very soon though.'

'Can you pick me up from school again?'

'I'm sure I can manage that at some point. Shall we make it a surprise day?'

Surprise days were a genius idea of Sherlock's where he could agree to most things without committing himself.

'We could make it a proper day,' Rosie answered, who saw through everything.

Sherlock's phone rang and he paced away to answer it.

'What?' he said. 'I know the dredgers didn't find anything, so you've no need to… sorry, what?' Sherlock's face went very still while he listened, and then he broke into a broad grin. 'Really?' he said, starting to laugh. 'No! It's really good news. Honestly it is. We'll be with you within the half hour.' He hung up and looked at John.

'I can't,' John said. 'I have to take her home. You can fill me in afterwards.' He tried, unsuccessfully, to hide his disappointment.

Sherlock looked at the little girl.

'Rosie, can you go and get your coat and shoes from upstairs?' he asked. 'And your blue-bear.'

She slipped from John's arms and walked slowly up the first flight of stairs, keeping a beady eye on both of them. They watched back. As soon as she was out of sight, she tore up the stairs, trying to minimise her absence as much as possible.

'Don't tell me to bring her,' John said, whispered the warning.

'I wasn't going to!' Sherlock whispered back. 'Though you could bring her.'

'I can't bring her to a crime scene!'

'It's only a little crime scene.'

'A murder happened there!'

'And I would never, ever take Rosie anywhere dangerous or that might mentally disturb her.'

John gave him a look.

'We've been over this before!' Sherlock said. 'Mary would have wanted you to make these choices on a case by case basis.'

'She said no crime scenes!'

'No, she said no cases, and she followed that up immediately by bringing her on one.'

Rosie's footfalls sounded on the landing above.

'Please!' Sherlock whispered. 'She'll find it fun!'

'A four-year-old shouldn't be solving crimes fun!'

'I didn't mean fun!' he said. 'I meant funny.' He glanced up the stairs. 'I'll come to the park with you after. I'll even buy you lunch and row her in the boats!'

Rosie appeared. Both me looked at her.

'Rosie, on the way home, we're going to go with Sherlock to look at a fancy house with a big garden,' John said. 'We'll only be a little time though, and we'll get our picnic.'

'Yes!' Sherlock said, punching the air. He dialled his phone. 'Yes, Lestrade? Meet me there. I'll need a jackhammer.'

'What?' John said. But he had no option then but to take his daughter's hand and to follow Sherlock out.

'What's this all about?' he asked, as soon as they were settled and well strapped in in the cab. 'Did the dredger find something?'

'Nope; better than that. A police constable did this morning. A piece of paper tangled in a shrub at the eastern edge of the garden.'

'A piece of paper.'

'Yep. Mashed into the soil a little bit. Not too badly. You can still read the print on it.'

'But there wasn't a piece of paper there! Unless you missed it.'

'Of course I didn't miss it! So, we've got a millionaire boatbuilder gone missing from his mansion by the river. He wasn't in the boathouse, there was no conceivable place for him to be in the house, and nothing's been found in the river. No cabs were called, no cars drove out, CCTV didn't pick him up anywhere, not on the road and not on the river, and nor did the very nosy people in that street. So, the most reasonable probability is that he's still at the house.'

'But he didn't turn invisible,' Rosie said. 'Because that's not possible.'

'She hears everything!' John whispered.

'I heard that,' she agreed.

'But we have a piece of paper now!' Sherlock said. 'Do you want to know what was on that piece of paper?'

'Tell me.'

'The last will and testament of Mr Connor Oldacre.'

'His will?'

'Oh yes. The original. This one signed by both parties. Not witnessed, probably not that legal, but signed. Dropped, presumably, but someone who had just inherited a fortune and who needed to get the evidence of this out of the house very quickly.'

'From his prison cell?'

'You'd be amazed at what the truly desperate criminal can achieve when he's really got his mind on protecting his inheritance.' He sat back and gave out a satisfied sigh. 'There's no hidey-hole in the house – I checked. There wasn't one through the boathouse – I checked there and he wouldn't risk a fire over it. So, where could he be?'

The cab rolled up at the house and they all looked out at the mansion.

'Why do I get the impression you're going to dig him out the ground with a jackhammer?' John asked.

'Because that's precisely what I'm going to do!' He gave John his enigmatic smile and got out of the cab.

John swore as quietly as he could, which earned him a raised eyebrow from Rosie, who unclipped her seatbelt and slipped out of the cab. He shook his head and followed them both in.

oOo

Rosie skipped and jumped across the top of the garden, instructed very carefully to stay well away from the boathouse and river end. Despite this, several uniformed police were watching her worriedly. John tried to stay as close as he could, while still being in earshot of the conversation between Sherlock and Lestrade.

'Where are they getting my drill from?' Sherlock snapped. 'It's taken an age!'

'We don't just happen to have jackhammers lying around in police locker rooms,' Lestrade snapped back.

'Well, that's a huge oversight, don't you think?'

'Yes, of course it is. I'll get your brother to order some for us now, shall I?'

Sherlock snarled. John watched his daughter play. She was clearly interested in the river, and kept stealing sidelong glances at him, just to check that his attention hadn't wavered. He made sure it didn't.

'Ah, marvellous!' Sherlock said. 'Give it here.' He started stamping around on the flagstones for a likely spot, then put the end of the jackhammer to it.

'Er, Sherlock…' John started.

Then he was cut off as Sherlock started the drill up. It only rounded twice before Sherlock was flung backwards, the drill jerked forward across the ground, and Rosie sprang into John's arms.

'Yeah, maybe leave that bit to the professionals?' John called.

'Maybe.' He put his hand up and John and Lestrade exchanged glances as they tried to decide which one should help him up. Lestrade gave in first, which was good, because John had no intention of doing so, and Sherlock staggered to his feet. He swiped his nose with his gloved hand. 'Someone else might like to…' he waved vaguely at the drill and the pavement before coming to John.

'Is she OK?' he asked, worried.

'A bit shocked, but that's all. Obviously, I'm very pissed off.'

'That I can deal with. I promise it will get funny soon.'

They stood and watched. A uniformed man had volunteered, but now looked a little concerned that he might show himself up as badly as Sherlock had. He started up the drill and Rosie held her hands over her ears. John put his hand around her head. It didn't actually need to do much before a figure like Cthulhu swarmed over the river wall, slick and dripping and yelling fit to burst.

'Get the hell off my lawn!' he yelled.

John started to giggle and Sherlock to laugh. Rosie peeped out from John's arms, eyes wide at the spectacle.

'There you go, Rosie Petal,' Sherlock said, taking her. 'That's why you should want to be a detective and not a psychopath,' he said.

'Ideally not both,' John said.

'Ideally,' Sherlock agreed.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Sherlock swept into the interview room. Lestrade sighed, but didn't try to stop him. He scraped his chair across the tiled floor, dropped down onto it, pulled his phone from his pocket and turned it on to record.

'What are you doing?' Mr Oldacre asked.

'I need to record this. My friend can't be there, and he'll find it very funny, and you'll have to be quick because I'm meeting him after this. I don't like to keep people waiting.'

'Sherlock…' Lestrade said.

'Fine, fine!' he said. 'I'll turn it off if you send me yours.'

Lestrade just shrugged, so Sherlock happily left his phone on the table.

'So, Mr Oldacre…' he didn't really have any idea how he intended to follow that. He channelled John. 'Why did you do it?'

'Do what?' he asked.

'Do… what you did. Why did you pretend to be dead and hide… Actually, let's ignore that one. Why did you drag Jackson Davis into it?'

'Why not?' Oldacre said. 'Why not, I ask you.'

'You thought it was funny?' Sherlock said.

'Funny. Yes, I suppose so. She was such a silly girl, you know. What was her name… Jilly? Oh no. Jenny. My secretary once.' He chuckled to himself. 'She was like a wildcat, every which way.' He went quiet, but Sherlock just let him start up again. 'She got very cross about that little boy,' he said. 'Didn't tell me for the first six month, and had no intention of letting me near him after then.'

'Didn't that suit you?' Sherlock asked.

'Better than the other one. Angela shoved her little girl right in my face. I was never convinced that one was mine, but the way Angela harped on, it was easier just to set her up somewhere else and get on with my life.'

'So you did.'

'So I did. Jenny was always a bitter woman though. It was funny. Liked to keep prodding at her every now and again, just to watch the sparks fly. She took other lovers, you know. More than one. Didn't seem to end up hating them the way she hated me. I must have been special.' He laughed again. 'Oh yes. Angela, now she's the opposite. Dried up and tight as a walnut. Had no need for anyone or anything apart from her little Flis. Flis grew up a right little cow too. Always wanting more, always dancing around me like a bloody fly – a dragonfly, don't you know, with all her pretty colours and the like.'

'She was in your life?' Lestrade asked.

'Never out of it. Bloody child. Last few months, probably having been dripped from Angela, she was all about my will. Turning 18, you see. Suddenly it was all important to her. Would not shut up about it.'

'So you killed her?'

'No I bloody didn't! Of course not. I just got that boy down here to dangle him in front of her a bit. There he was, a little estate boy, sort of one she wouldn't spit at in the street, dragged him into my living room and made her watch as I signed the bloody lot over to him!' He laughed loudly. 'Oh, you should have seen the look on her face! And his too! Didn't know which one was going to piss themselves first!'

Sherlock watched, fascinated. He started to doubt the fact that he was the only sociopath in the room.

'Why Jackson Davis though?' Lestrade said.

'Why not! It was funny. His mother is a nasty little cat, and Angela! Oh, you should have seen Angela's face when I showed her the money I was giving him. I thought she was going to storm up to White City there and then. Pull another chunk out of Jenny's hair!'

'Did he know about the money?' Lestrade asked. 'In the account?'

'What money! Oh, it wasn't going to him, obviously! There are loads of Jackson Davises in the world, don't you know? I just happen to be one of them! But it was a lovely little story, yes? And then the apprenticeship? Oh, that was the royal icing! His mother looked fit to throw me from the rooftop! Angela was spitting for my blood. Flis was whirling around my living room in a rage, and the boy just sat there like a side of mutton, not knowing what to do with himself. Oh you should have seen them!'

'And then you killed your daughter,' Lestrade said.

'No, that wasn't so.'

'What happened then?'

'Jackson did it. With that silly pipe of his.' He laughed at the thought. 'Oh that boy. Do you know what he did? He brought that cane in like he was a lord. Left it in my umbrella stack like a proper gent. Then came in with his scuffed trainers and pulling at his sleeves. Then he thought I'd done this whole thing with the estate and the firm, then Flis was screaming like a banshee, hammering away at the computer trying to find the bloody will. God knows if she got it in the end – I can't work out how those bloody things work. Then the boy ran off with his tail between his legs and left his bloody pipe behind him.'

'And then what happened?' Lestrade said.

'Then Flis got knocked out. Don't know how. She was all sorts of crazy at that point, probably did something silly, like run into a wall. She's just a silly little girl, after all.'

'Right,' Sherlock said. 'A wall. Really, I'm getting bored now.'

'Oh, but it's not boring! Not seeing them all bitchfight like that! It only stopped being fun because the silly girl knocked herself out.'

'How?' Lestrade asked.

'Ran into a metal bar,' he said.

'And then?' Sherlock asked.

'Then Jackson ran off.'

Sherlock sighed. 'Are we going to be much longer? Because I only have finite memory space.' He nodded at the phone, to make it clear which memory was finite. 'Why did you run away? If you didn't kill anyone, why did you run away?'

'Oh, I was always going to,' he said. 'I was so sick of it all. I had my bag packed, all those years, ready to run off, just waiting for the right time. There was all the lovely money, obviously, so that held me back, but there was always the call of the sea. Have you heard it, Mr Holmes? Pulling at you to go wherever the wind might blow you?'

'You're not getting more interesting.'

'You know what I find very interesting?' Oldacre said. 'The houses down on the river there. Some of them have smuggler's cellars. Not many know about that. I didn't know my cellar's there, you know. Not until I fell over the wall after a big night and there it was in front of me, just the top of it there when the river's at its lowest tide. You drop down into a well at low tide, then up under the garden in a little cave. It's none too dry, but it's safe and with my kit-bag in there, I had everything I needed. How did you find it, Mr Holmes? I didn't find it for 15 years.'

'I didn't find it,' Sherlock said. 'I just waited for you to show me.'

Oldacre shrugged.

Lestrade cleared his throat. 'Let's get back to the girl, shall we?'

The look on Oldacre's face suggested he was far more interested in the smugglers cellar than he was in the girl who had died in his boatshed. He sighed.

'What? What's there to know? Jackson beat her up with his stick…'

'No,' Sherlock said.

'How do you know?' Oldacre said, challenging him.

Sherlock was baffled. 'I don't understand the question.'

'How do you know that Jackson didn't beat her up with his stick?'

'Oh! You really don't know? Sorry; I didn't realise that there was anyone out there that stupid. The injuries to Miss Devenham were not created by that rod. It's just not possible.'

'No, but I hit her with it,' Oldacre said.

The three of them just let that little confession sit there in the room.

'She was…' Oldacre thought. Sherlock could practically hear him doing it. 'She was wild. It was an accident, that's all. I was just trying to calm her down! And… and you'll find my blood in the room too! And on the stick! She was hitting me too! It's my blood on the stick!'

'You do know that we can accurately find two different bloods on one weapon, don't you?' Sherlock asked.

This earned a blank stare. Sherlock frowned back.

'Doesn't everyone know this stuff?' he asked.

'Do you know how to build a boat?' Oldacre asked him.

Sherlock pondered whether he would be able to build a boat. It was largely maths, physics and some chemistry, assuming you wanted something serviceable and you weren't too bothered about aesthetics.

'So,' Lestrade said, bringing him back from his reverie. 'You hit Miss Devenham with the bar, did you? What happened then.'

Goldacre looked as though he was losing track of his own confession.

'Well, there you are, you see. The girl, and I don't reckon she was my girl, you know, but there she was on the floor with all her pretty hair all spread out around her. His stupid stick in the bucket in the hall. I made a marriage. That's all.'

'You clubbed her head until her skull was stoved in,' Lestrade said.

'But she was already dead by then. In self-defence.'

'No,' Lestrade said. 'She was unconscious for a while before she died. Our pathologist was quite clear – there was a concussion to the back of her head that would almost certainly have rendered her unconscious. But still alive.'

Oldacre wavered then, trying to piece this all together.

'She wasn't murdered until you clubbed her head in,' Sherlock told him. 'In the boathouse, I presume?'

Oldacre licked his lips.

'Not so funny now, is it,' Sherlock said. 'You seem to be under the frankly ludicrous impression that you can disguise the corpse of an eighteen-year-old female to look like a fifty-year-old man by just breaking her head up? And then just what? Hide?'

'Hide for a bit, yes,' he said. 'I took down my big, old kit bag and pulled it into the smugglers cave with me. Not a high living standard, but I got by.'

'I feel your pain,' Sherlock said, nodding compassionately.

'Like I say,' Oldacre said, 'the call of the sea. I was just answering it.'

'Not sure the sea's in the habit of instructing men to murder their daughters,' Lestrade said.

'But then you got impatient,' Sherlock said.

'A bit, yeah. People kept hanging around as though they were looking for someone else but they already had the damned boy! And I was supposed to be burned in the boathouse, so what were they all looking for now?'

'So, you put the signed will on the ground just to hurry people along.'

Oldacre shrugged.

'Good God,' Sherlock said. 'I'm not sure I ever understood that someone could be a stupid as you.'

Oldacre snarled a grin. 'That's OK,' he said. 'I make up for it by being nasty. You just go and ask Jenny Davis.'

Lestrade glanced at Sherlock.

'I'm not sure we need to, do we?'

'Not me,' Sherlock said. 'I think the murdered daughter in the boatshed clued me in to it.'

'Yeah,' Lestrade said. 'Not as interesting as the smuggler's cellar perhaps, put probably a little more important.'

Sherlock stretched his arms out. 'Right, I have a date with some boats myself,' he said. 'Not as luxurious as a Oldacre Classic 42, but a damned sight more fun.'

He gathered his phone from the table, gave Oldacre an enigmatic smile, and swept from the room.

 **And there I'm ending it. Obviously I could write another seventeen chapters of fun with Rosie, but I promised a case-fic, so there it ends.**

 **Pip. xxx**


End file.
